Friday, June 13, 2008

Manolito cambia todo

As I have already noted, Manolito wasn't playing many songs from the new album while I was in Havana, which was slightly perplexing. Instead of playing the cover of the Mexican group Camila's Coleccionista de canciones that they recorded on Control, they were doing the title track from that group's album, Todo cambió (which has sold about 800,000 copies apparently). There were two other new songs - not on the album - also being played, one sung by Mayami, with a coro of Cual es tu mala leche, and another sung by Noro. This song sounded very under-arranged, and at times, under-rehearsed, but having said that, there was something quite appealing about it. Bajista El Chino told me it just came out of a jam - and it sounded like it, but it built nicely, the band slowly amping up the tension behind Noro's enthusiastic vocals.The coro apparently comes from a reggaeton song - which explains why the crowd already knows it.In this clip Maikel Blanco is sitting in on piano. Watch Manolito boot him off at what he obviously thinks is a crucial moment.

1 comment:

I hope they work that into a real song. I think we all understand that they aren't playing much form the new CD becasue Cubans aren't the intended audience of the onda "salsa romantica" that they are doing. I think they are trying to open up the Spanish market, hence the Spanish guitar of which I am so fond (not).